How to Use Alumni Monitor’s New Marketplace to Boost Alumni Engagement

15Nov

Sponsored Post

This post is written by Michael Ellison, President at Alumni Monitor, a research service of Corporate Insight.

Converting alumni school pride into alumni donations has always been a challenge for university development teams. Recent graduates strapped for money have limited funds to donate, while more established alumni often direct their charitable giving elsewhere. Corporate Insight’s Alumni Monitor works to solve this challenge by outfitting universities with research on emerging trends and new developments in the alumni relations field through a new online marketplace.

Featuring three different packages at varying price points, the online marketplace allows colleges and universities with any budget to use actionable research for more effective alumni communication and engagement. For a limited time, Alumni Monitor is offering 20% off first orders on the marketplace with promo code: WELCOME20.

The growing list of actionable marketplace resources includes:

Make an Impact in 24 Hours: A Look at Innovative Giving Day Features report, offered at $150, reviews the 2016 Giving Days hosted by schools within the Alumni Monitor coverage group to identify the most innovative features of these single-day donation drives. Giving Days can help recruit new donors, re-connect existing donors and build a sense of community and excitement around donating to an alma mater. This report highlights the creative twists that contribute to an engaging and successful Giving Day.

Email Best Practices: Lets Connect! report, offered at $750, reviews email correspondence, with a special focus on design and effectiveness. Alumni Monitor examined outreach from across two dozen top universities over the course of 2015, assessing email design, use of graphics, and subject line strategies. The report is broken down into two sections, Trends and Leaders and Best Practice Recommendations.

Alumni Twitter Outreach: Engaging Alumni, 140 Characters at a Time report, which is offered at $1,200, reviews the different ways colleges and universities use Twitter to reach alumni and keep them engaged with their alma mater. Alumni Monitor examined the Twitter presences for over 50 colleges and universities, starting with how they publicize their alumni Twitter presences on their homepage, alumni main page and social media directory. The report also studies both the general and alumni-focused Twitter accounts to analyze design, content and tone. Some key findings from this report include:

Multimedia Platforms: A majority of alumni-focused Twitter accounts use images, either their own or through retweets, but multimedia usage is rare. However, a Twitter profile can expand beyond typical text and image posts with multimedia options, such as Vine and Periscope, to offer live-streaming of on-campus events for alumni.

Distinctive Twitter Profiles: Twitter is not only a powerful tool for discussion and social interaction, but it plays a vital marketing role for universities looking to engage with their alumni in real-time. Twenty percent of universities offer additional Twitter profiles relevant to some or all alumni, in addition to their main handle, making it more convenient for alumni to see events and initiatives specific to their interests.

Alumni Giving: University and alumni association Twitter accounts are powerful tools for soliciting year-end donations. Prioritizing Twitter campaigns that align with charitable events, such as Giving Tuesday, can have a large impact on alumni donations.

Alumni Monitor’s online marketplace offers universities a valuable hub of resources to gain a better understanding of the most impactful communications methods for improving engagement with alumni. The site will be regularly updated with new reports, helping colleges and universities throughout the country leverage actionable, insightful research to communicate more effectively with their alumni.